“There is always a tendency to believe that a hundred small men can furnish leadership equal to that of one big man. This is not so.”

Ladies’ Home Journal, May 1917

“Character is far more important than intellect in making a man a good citizen or successful at his calling—meaning by character not only such qualities as honesty and truthfulness, but courage, perseverance, and self-reliance.”

North American Review, August 1890

“The candidate is the candidate of a party; but if the President is worth his salt he is the President of the whole people.”

Speech at City Park, Little Rock, Arkansas, October 25, 1905

“Example is the most potent of all things.”

Speech to Holy Name Society, Oyster Bay, New York, August 16, 1903

“The one great debt owed by the nation is that to the men who go to the front and pay with their bodies for the faith that is in them.”

Metropolitan, November 1918

“Nine-tenths of wisdom is to be wise in time, and at the right time.”

Mem. Ed. XXII, 1913

“Stability of economic policy must always be the prime economic need of this country.”

Second Annual Message, Washington, December 2, 1902

“Fit to hold our own against the strong nations of the earth, our voice for peace will carry to the ends of the earth.”

Eighth Annual Message, December 8, 1908

“I have not a particle of sympathy with the sentimentality – as I deem it, the mawkishness – which overflows with foolish pity for the criminal and cares not at all for the victim of the criminal.”

An Autobiography, 1913

“Business success, whether for the individual or for the nation, is a good thing only so far as it is accompanied by and develops a high standard of conduct — honor, integrity, civic courage.”

Fifth Annual Message, Washington, December 5, 1905

“In every field of endeavor the work best worth doing for Americans must in some degree express the distinctive characteristics of our own national soul.”

Address before the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York City, November 1, 1916